________________________________________________
_ As he neared Petersburg, Alexey Alexandrovitch not only adhered
entirely to his decision, but was even composing in his head the
letter he would write to his wife. Going into the porter's room,
Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at the letters and papers brought
from his office, and directed that they should be brought to him
in his study.
"The horses can be taken out and I will see no one," he said in
answer to the porter, with a certain pleasure, indicative of his
agreeable frame of mind, emphasizing the words, "see no one."
In his study Alexey Alexandrovitch walked up and down twice, and
stopped at an immense writing-table, on which six candles had
already been lighted by the valet who had preceded him. He
cracked his knuckles and sat down, sorting out his writing
appurtenances. Putting his elbows on the table, he bent his head
on one side, thought a minute, and began to write, without
pausing for a second. He wrote without using any form of address
to her, and wrote in French, making use of the plural "vous,"
which has not the same note of coldness as the corresponding
Russian form.
"At our last conversation, I notified you of my intention to
communicate to you my decision in regard to the subject of that
conversation. Having carefully considered everything, I am
writing now with the object of fulfilling that promise. My
decision is as follows. Whatever your conduct may have been, I do
not consider myself justified in breaking the ties in which we
are bound by a Higher Power. The family cannot be broken up by a
whim, a caprice, or even by the sin of one of the partners in the
marriage, and our life must go on as it has done in the past.
This is essential for me, for you, and for our son. I am fully
persuaded that you have repented and do repent of what has called
forth the present letter, and that you will cooperate with me in
eradicating the cause of our estrangement, and forgetting the
past. In the contrary event, you can conjecture what awaits you
and your son. All this I hope to discuss more in detail in a
personal interview. As the season is drawing to a close, I would
beg you to return to Petersburg as quickly as possible, not later
than Tuesday. All necessary preparations shall be made for your
arrival here I beg you to note that I attach particular
significance to compliance with this request.
A. KAREN1N
"P.S.--I enclose the money which may be needed for your
expenses."
He read the letter through and felt pleased with it, and
especially that he had remembered to enclose money: there was not
a harsh word, not a reproach in it, nor was there undue
indulgence. Most of all, it was a golden bridge for return.
Folding the letter and smoothing it with a massive ivory knife,
and putting it in an envelope with the money, he rang the bell
with the gratification it always afforded him to use the
wellarranged appointments of his writing-table.
"Give this to the courier to be delivered to Anna Arkadyevna to-
morrow at the summer villa," he said, getting up.
"Certainly, your excellency; tea to be served in the study?"
Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be brought to the study, and
playing with the massive paper-knife, he moved to his easy-chair,
near which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the
French work on Egyptian hieroglyphics that he had begun. Over the
easy-chair there hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of Anna, a
fine painting by a celebrated artist. Alexey Alexandrovitch
glanced at it. The unfathomable eyes gazed ironically and
insolently at him. Insufferably insolent and challenging was the
effect in Alexey Alexandrovitch's eyes of the black lace about
the head, admirably touched in by the painter, the black hair and
handsome white hand with one finger lifted, covered with rings.
After looking at the portrait for a minute, Alexey Alexandrovitch
shuddered so that his lips quivered and he uttered the sound
"brrr," and turned away. He made haste to sit down in his
easy-chair and opened the book. He tried to read, but he could
not revive the very vivid interest he had felt before in Egyptian
hieroglyphics. He looked at the book and thought of something
else. He thought not of his wife, but of a complication that had
arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the
chief interest of it. He felt that he had penetrated more deeply
than ever before into this intricate affair, and that he had
originated a leading idea--he could say it without self-flattery-
-calculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen him in
his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be
of the greatest benefit to the government. Directly the servant
had set the tea and left the room, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up
and went to the writing-table. Moving into the middle of the
table a portfolio of papers, with a scarcely perceptible smile of
self-satisfaction, he took a pencil from a rack and plunged into
the perusal of a complex report relating to the present
complication. The complication was of this nature: Alexey
Alexandrovitch's characteristic quality as a politician, that
special individual qualification that every rising functionary
possesses, the qualification that with his unflagging ambition,
his reserve, his honesty, and with his self-confidence had made
his career, was his contempt for red tape, his cutting down of
corrrespondence, his direct contact, wherever possible, with the
living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous
Commission of the 2nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the
irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under
Alexey Alexandrovitch's department, and was a glaring example of
fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexey Alexandrovitch
was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in
the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of
Alexey Alexandrovitch's predecessor. And vast sums of money had
actually been spent and were still being spent on this business,
and utterly unproductively, and the whole business could
obviously lead to nothing whatever. Alexey Alexandrovitch had
perceived this at once on entering office, and would have liked
to lay hands on the Board of Irrigation. But at first, when he
did not yet feel secure in his position, he knew it would affect
too many interests, and would be injudicious. Later on he had
been engrossed in other questions, and had simply forgotten the
Board of Irrigation. It went of itself, like all such boards, by
the mere force of inertia. (Many people gained their livelihood
by the Board of Irrigation, especially one highly conscientious
and musical family: all the daughters played on stringed
instruments, and Alexey Alexandrovitch knew the family and had
stood godfather to one of the elder daughters.) The raising of
this question by a hostile department was in Alexey
Alexandrovitch's opinion a dishonorable proceeding, seeing that
in every department there were things similar and worse, which no
one inquired into, for well-known reasons of official etiquette.
However, now that the glove had been thrown down to him, he had
boldly picked it up and demanded the appointment of a special
commission to investigate and verify the working of the Board of
Irrigation of the lands in the Zaraisky province. But in
compensation he gave no quarter to the enemy either. He demanded
the appointment of another special commission to inquire into the
question of the Native Tribes Organization Committee. The
question of the Native Tribes had been brought up incidentally in
the Commission of the 2nd of June, and had been pressed forward
actively by Alexey Alexandrovitch as one admitting of no delay on
account of the deplorable condition bf the native tribes. In the
commission this question had been a ground of contention between
several departments. The department hostile to Alexey
Alexandrovitch proved that the condition of the native tribes was
exceedingly flourishing, that the proposed reconstruction might
be the ruin of their prosperity, and that if there were anything-
wrong, it arose mainly from the failure on the part of Alexey
Alexandrovitch's department to carry out the measures prescribed
by law. Now Alexey Alexandrovitch intended to demand: First, that
a new commission should be formed which should be empowered to
investigate the condition of the native tribes on the spot;
secondly, if it should appear that the condition of the native
tribes actually was such as it appeared to be from the official
documents in the hands of the committee, that another new
scientific commission should be appointed to investigate the
deplorable condition of the native tribes from the--(1)
political, (2) administrative, (3) economic, (4) ethnographical,
(5) material, and (6) religious points of view; thirdly, that
evidence should be required from the rival department of the
measures that had been taken during the last ten years by that
department for averting the disastrous conditions in which the
native tribes were now placed; and fourthly and finally, that
that department explain why it had, as appeared from the evidence
before the committee, from No. 17,015 and 18,038, from December
5, 1863, and June 7, 1864, acted in direct contravention of the
intent of the law T... Act 18, and the note to Act 36. A flash of
eagerness suffused the face of Alexey Alexandrovitch as he
rapidly wrote out a synopsis of these ideas for his own benefit.
Having filled a sheet of paper, he got up, rang, and sent a note
to the chief secretary of his department to look up certain
necessary facts for him. Getting up and walking about the room,
he glance again at the portrait, frowned, and smiled
contemptuously. After reading a little more of the book on
Egyptian hieroglyphics, and renewing his interest in it, Alexey
Alexandrovitch went to bed at eleven o'clock, and recollecting as
he lay in bed the incident with his wife, he saw it now in by no
means such a gloomy light. _
Read next: Part Three: Chapter 15
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